A former BBC boss who now chairs the Arts Council enjoyed a taxpayer-funded £431 taxi ride home from a night celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday.

Dame Liz Forgan was driven back from the performance at Stratford-upon-Avon to her London home at a cost of more than £4 a mile to the arts quango, which received £436m of government funding last year.

The cab ride is one of dozens of expense claims made at the council by Forgan and her predecessor, Sir Christopher Frayling, in 2008-9, a period when the council was slashing funding, or removing it altogether from more than 200 arts organisations.

Details of claims made public under the Freedom of Information Act show that Frayling also requested reimbursement of £500 for his own leaving present, a framed print by Tracey Emin, plus a further £115 for his farewell drinks.

The moral high ground is as dangerous a place to be these days as in a taxi from Stratford to London. So I will own up immediately to receiving my featured CD free as a requested review sample. Dutch based Ensemble Klang appeared last year in my post Klang - but not Stockhausen, and as a result of that article their artistic director Pete Harden emailed asking if I would be interested in listening to their new album of music by Peter Adriaansz.

Adriaansz’ music is characterized by a formalist stance and a high degree of conceptualism, in which sound, structure and audible mathematics are the main ingredients. In recent years an increasing interest in flexibility and variable forms can also be observed in his work. In numerous reviews his music has alternately – and often for the same piece - been dubbed everything from sadistic, brutal and extremely boring, to poetic, touching, ingenious and impressive.

Above is a graphic from the score of Waves 3. The excellent sleeve notes for the album which complement refreshingly stylish packaging include an extended interview with the composer. The notes explain that:

On the surface this is music that moves very slowly; it is mostly composed of long tones that either do not change at all, or change only in our perception because of incidents in the sonic ecology that surrounds them.

Waves is most certainly not an easy listen. But in my book that is no bad thing. I have written previously about the crucial need to listen outside our comfort zones and about the merits of 'ear-candling music'. Which is precisely what, for me, Peter Adriaansz's music is. And if you are wondering what the link is between Waves and the peccadilloes of Arts Council executives the answer lies in the small print on the CD sleeve.

The story of a contemporary composer's Dutch courage is here.Waves was received as a requested review sample. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

4 comments:

In an era of instant information available from countless sources, the notion of a government-run national broadcasting system is a notion out of step with the times.

The continued massive involuntary subsidization of the BBC prevents the eruption of a wealth of private alternatives in the UK, all competing for viewers and all injecting new levels of creativity into their endeavors.

There is something faintly Soviet-era about the BBC in its current incarnation. It should have been phased out back in the 1980’s, accompanied by the flowering of a hundred new alternatives. Instead, the BBC was allowed to rot on, and it has now entered its late, decadent phase, a phase that never should have been allowed to occur.

... the BBC was allowed to rot on, and it has now entered its late, decadent phase ... oh yes Drew, how well put.

Liz Forgan, who was with the Arts Council at the time of her taxi ride, has not lost her position. In fact her action has been vigorously defended by the Council -

The council said of Forgan’s £431 ride: “She returned to her home in London by taxi because, at the time, performances at the Royal Shakespeare Company regularly finished after the last train to London had departed. She had four meetings while there.”

From Wikipedia -

Liz Forgan was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Radio Broadcasting in 2006 and previously awarded the OBE in 1998 also for services to Radio Broadcasting.

In Britain today youdon't get fired for £431 taxi rides. You get made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.